Contribute
This book is a proposal for an architecture, submitted to criticism. It stands to gain from being corrected, contested and completed — and this site exists so that this leaves a verifiable trace.
How it works, in three sentences
There is no comment thread, no account to create and no database: contributions go through the book’s repository, which already holds the history, the attribution and the possibility of reverting. Nothing is published before it has been read: the review is done before going online, never after. The coordinator works alone, devotes two to three hours a week to that review, and everything that follows stems from this constraint.
This choice is not an abdication: a review queue left open with no entry filter produces a backlog that even hundreds of volunteers cannot clear. Restricting what comes in is the only known way of responding quickly to what comes in.
Three routes, from the lightest to the most demanding
Choose the lightest one that fits: a well-located error takes five minutes to report; it is handled at the weekly review, and nothing is published unread.
1. Report an error
Effort: Five minutes. No knowledge of git is required.
What is expected
A typo, a cross-reference that leads nowhere, a number on the site that does not match the PDF, a caption that contradicts its figure, a dead link. You have nothing to correct yourself: you point to the place and you state what is wrong with it.
The template to fill in
Copy as is, field by field. A field left empty is a question that will come back; a complete template can be dealt with in a single reading.
Page or file : page URL, or PDF name and page number
Exact passage : “…” (copy the sentence exactly as written)
What is wrong : one sentence, no more
Supporting source : public URL, or full reference (author, year, title,
publisher, page) allowing anyone to verify
Consulted on : YYYY-MM-DD
Open a pre-filled email — report an error — opens your email client; nothing is sent until you send it. — or copy the address: nizar.yaiche@ystrat.com
A screenshot attached to the email helps locate the passage.
Where to send it: By email, or by opening an issue on the repository if you have access to it.
What will be refused
- a report that does not say where: without the URL or the page number, finding the passage costs more than the correction;
- a difference of opinion presented as an error — disagreement belongs to the third route, where it is welcome;
- a list of thirty points in a single submission: it will be sent back to be split up, as it can neither be arbitrated nor tracked point by point.
2. Propose a sourced correction
Effort: Half an hour. A proposed change on the repository, or the same template by email.
What is expected
You are no longer reporting, you are writing the replacement: the current text, the proposed text, and the source that establishes it. This is the most useful contribution of all, because it can be decided in a single reading.
The template to fill in
Copy as is, field by field. A field left empty is a question that will come back; a complete template can be dealt with in a single reading.
Location : §x.y — section title | Table n | Figure n
Current text : “…”
Proposed text : “…”
What changes : one sentence — a figure, a date, an attribution, a cross-reference
Source : author, year, title, publisher, URL or DOI, page
Consulted on : YYYY-MM-DD
Accessibility : can the source be consulted without an account or subscription?
if not, say where it is held (library, shelfmark)
Conflict of interest: declared, or “none”
Open a pre-filled email — propose a sourced correction — opens your email client; nothing is sent until you send it. — or copy the address: nizar.yaiche@ystrat.com
A screenshot attached to the email helps locate the passage.
Where to send it: A branch, a commit, a merge request — the procedure is published on this site, on the “Contribute via the repository” page, SSH key included. If git blocks you, do not spend an hour on it: send the text by email, and it will be handled in the same way.
What will be refused
- a correction without a source: this is the rule that admits no exception, and it is explained below;
- a source that does not say what it is made to say — the quotation is checked against the page cited;
- a private source, an internal document, a conversation, a confidential note: what cannot be verified by a third party cannot be published here;
- a stylistic rewrite that changes the meaning without saying so — rewording is useful, but the note must state what changes.
3. Propose a substantive development
Effort: Several days. A signed, attributed text, discussed before it is written.
What is expected
A box, a technical note, a case study, a reasoned objection to one of the book’s theses. This is where disagreement belongs: a sourced objection that holds is worth more than assent. Write the record below first; the text is drafted only once its attachment and scope have been settled, failing which a long text risks being written for nothing.
The template to fill in
Copy as is, field by field. A field left empty is a question that will come back; a complete template can be dealt with in a single reading.
Proposed title :
Attachment : §x.y of the book — one main section only
Thesis in one sentence:
What it adds : what the book does not yet say, in three lines
What it disputes : where applicable, the thesis of the book being challenged
Target length : 800 to 2,500 words. Beyond that, write first to say why
Sources : at least three, each public and verifiable
(author, year, title, URL or DOI, date consulted)
Method : data used, period covered, known limits
Author : name, affiliation, ORCID if any
Conflict of interest:
Licence agreement : read and accepted — see contribute/licence/
Open a pre-filled email — propose a substantive development — opens your email client; nothing is sent until you send it. — or copy the address: nizar.yaiche@ystrat.com
A screenshot attached to the email helps locate the passage.
Where to send it: The record by email first; the text afterwards, on a branch of the repository, once the record has been accepted.
What will be refused
- a text that attaches to no section: the book is an architecture, not an anthology;
- a thesis without a method — the data used, the period covered and the known limitations are part of the text, not of the discussion that follows;
- a text that calls a named individual into question: the book discusses functions, mandates and architectures, never individuals;
- an advocacy text, a press release, a promotional text for an organisation or a product;
- a text already published elsewhere to which you do not hold the rights.
Report a factual error without leaving the page
The same template as route 1, as fields. Nothing is sent to the site: the button opens your mail client with the message ready.
The rule that governs everything: a publicly verifiable source
Every template requires a source, and that requirement is not an academic formality. It is what protects this book on two fronts at once.
- It protects third parties. The book deals with public finance, central banks, taxation and sovereignty: a fact put forward without a source on such ground is not an opinion, it is a legal risk for whoever publishes it as much as for whoever writes it. A contribution grounded in a public and verifiable fact cannot be defamatory.
- It makes review sustainable. A sourced contribution can be settled by opening the source; an unsourced contribution calls for an investigation. That is the difference between ten minutes and half a day — and, at two or three hours a week, between an answer and silence.
What counts as a source
- a published and dated text: article, report, ruling, treaty, official statistic, dataset;
- consultable by a third party without special favour — online, or held in a library whose shelfmark you provide;
- cited precisely enough for the passage to be found: page, section, article, table;
- together with the date it was consulted where it is a web page, because a web page changes without saying so.
What is not one
- an internal document, a confidential note, a private exchange;
- “on good authority”, “it is well known that”, “practitioners agree”;
- an undated and unsigned post, or a screenshot without a link;
- an answer from a conversational assistant — yours or this site’s.
What happens after submission
| Step | Stated time frame | What you receive |
|---|---|---|
| Acknowledgement of receipt | 5 working days | Confirmation that the contribution is legible and complete, or the list of the missing fields. |
| Decision | 15 working days | Accepted, accepted subject to amendment, or refused with the reason — taken from the lists above. |
| Publication | at the next regeneration of the site | The contribution appears under your name, and your entry appears on the members page. |
A refused contribution can be revised and resubmitted: a refusal concerns a text, never its author.
If you send your contribution today: acknowledgement expected no later than within 5 working days, decision within 15 working days. If you hear nothing after 20 working days, send a reminder: an email can go astray, and the reminder is provided for by the procedure — it is no imposition.
Attribution, licence and withdrawal
Your name, your affiliation and your ORCID accompany what you write, on the contributors page as in the history of the repository. It is the counterpart of the time you give, and it is lasting: the history of a repository is not rewritten.
- The contribution licence agreement — to be read before your first submission: without it, this site has no right to publish what you send it.
- The contributors page — who contributed what.
- Contribute via the repository — cloning, naming a branch, writing a commit message. The text is that of the repository’s CONTRIBUTING.md file, published here to be read before requesting access.
Reporting content, writing to a human
To report content you consider unlawful, or for any question that falls outside the three routes, write to nizar.yaiche@ystrat.com. Every report receives an acknowledgement and a reasoned reply.
The site’s assistant is an artificial intelligence : what it does, on which corpus, and where your questions go.